Facebook Sued for Allegedly Providing Support to Hamas

The families of five American victims killed or injured in Palestinian militant attacks against Israel are holding Facebook partially responsible, suing the company for $1 billion for enabling terrorism. Filed July 10 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the families' U.S. legal team, the Berkman Law Office, LLC argues that Facebook is liable because the company failed to flag and remove content propagating terrorism, including "instructions to operatives" to carry out the attacks, according to The Verge.

"For years, Hamas, its leaders, spokesmen, and members have openly maintained and used official Facebook accounts with little or no interference," the lawsuit says. Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S., the European Union, and Israel. "Despite receiving numerous complaints and widespread media and other attention for providing its online social media platform and communications services to Hamas, Facebook has continued to provide these resources and services to Hamas and its affiliates."

This lawsuit comes at the heels of a case filed against Facebook, Twitter, and Google for enabling the Paris terror attacks last November, as well as a case filed against Twitter in January for failing to remove ISIS content.

"There is no place for content encouraging violence, direct threats, terrorism, or hate speech on Facebook," a company spokesperson told Bloomberg, "We have a set of Community Standards to help people understand what is allowed on Facebook, and we urge people to use our reporting tools if they find content that they believe violates our standards so we can investigate and take swift action." Facebook and Youtube have started taking down content promoting ISIS, especially propaganda videos released by the terrorist group. In not taking down Hamas content, the suit alleges Facebook is "knowingly" supporting the organization.

"Facebook has knowingly provided material support and resources to Hamas in the form of Facebook’s online social network platform and communication services," the suit alleges. In doing so, it accuses the company of violating the Anti-Terrorism Act by providing material support and financing an international terrorist organization. However, Facebook is protected by the Communications Decency Act, which does not currently hold web platforms accountable for content posted by users, according to The Verge. That's the same law being contested in a class-action lawsuit against Snapchat for sharing sexually explicit content, and like the Snapchat lawsuit, this case could be groundbreaking if the court rules in favor of the victims' families.